


Scars and Stripes

by thirty2flavors



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: (nothing explicit), Comedy, F/M, Fluff, Partial Nudity, Post-Series, no actual sex but the obvious lead-up to it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 01:52:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11613465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirty2flavors/pseuds/thirty2flavors
Summary: Sasha's eyes were wide, her forehead crinkled, her mouth frozen in a small surprised ‘oh’. It was not an altogether flattering way to be looked at.“Um…” he started, and then stopped.“Holy shit,” said Sasha, still staring at his bare chest. “Your arm.”





	Scars and Stripes

**Author's Note:**

> All the talk of Rhys' tattoos -- and also [lucyrne](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theungenue/pseuds/lucyrne)'s hilarious fic [in my skin indigo blue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11562891) got me thinking and, well, here we are.

Getting some actual privacy with Sasha was way harder than Rhys anticipated. 

Between accidental Vault travel, a couple accidentally intrusive robots, one intentionally disruptive sister, and the really quite considerable amount of courage Rhys needed to make a move in the first place, it took much longer than he would have liked. By the time it finally happened, it had already played out in his head more times—and it more detail—than he’d ever admit to.

Judging by the enthusiastic way she was kissing him and the fact that her hands were wandering—well—everywhere, Sasha felt similarly.

With one hand grasping at any bare skin he could find and the other cupping the back of her neck, Rhys let her walk him backward until his legs hit the edge of the mattress. Sasha grinned against his mouth at the small jolt, and both her hands migrated to the centre of his chest before she shoved him down onto the bed.

Sasha, he was learning quickly, was a little… aggressive.

That was fine. He could work with that.

For a moment she just loomed over him at the edge of the bed, her head tilted in an unmistakable look of self-satisfaction. 

Rhys raised an eyebrow, smirking back. “You planning on joining me, or…?”

“Maybe,” she teased, but the next second she was climbing onto her knees to straddle his hips, so that was a win, definitely.

He sat up to kiss her again, propping himself up on his metal arm—easily its best use so far, he thought, as his free hand snaked up under her shirt. The tips of his fingers brushed the soft underside of her breast, and Sasha leaned forward into his touch, her hum of appreciation turning to a frustrated grunt.

“You wear too many clothes,” she grumbled, pushing his jacket down over his shoulders. “Why do you have so many damn buttons?” 

“It’s all about the aesthetic,” he grinned, but when the buttons on his vest strained in her haste, he grabbed her hand. “Hey, hey, easy! This was expensive, you know.”

Sasha pulled back enough to fold her arms and roll her eyes.

“Just… here, I’ll… sometimes it gets caught on the…” 

He trailed off, focusing all the energy he could spare on getting his jacket, vest and shirt off as quickly as possible. It took, frankly, a little more focus than he would have liked, considering in his periphery he could see Sasha tugging off her red hoodie, and he _really_ wanted to pay attention that, instead. 

(Okay, maybe she _did_ have a point about the buttons, in this very specific instance.) 

Pulling his arm free at last, he tossed the clothes off the bed with an unceremonious thump and turned back to Sasha. Her black sweater was tantalizingly close to slipping off the only shoulder it covered, but her eyes were wide, her forehead crinkled, her mouth frozen in a small surprised ‘oh’.

It was not an altogether flattering way to be looked at. 

“Um…” he started, and then stopped.

“Holy shit,” said Sasha, still staring at his bare chest. “Your arm.”

“Oh,” said Rhys dumbly in return, glancing down at his own arm like it might surprise him. “Right.” 

He flexed each metal finger self-consciously, feeling a little silly and a little stunned. People were weird about the arm sometimes, particularly when they saw it up close. Something about seeing it connect right into the skin of his shoulder creeped them out, even if they were perfectly fine with it the rest of the time. The novelty of its various tricks ran out against the reality.

Naively, he hadn’t expected Sasha to be one of those people.

He cleared his throat and attempted to sound casual. “Sorry, is it too cold? I can, um…”

What he was going to offer to do, he wasn’t exactly sure, but the wrinkle on Sasha’s forehead only deepened in confusion.

“Cold?” she repeated. “Why would… _oh_.” She blinked and shook her head. “Not that one, I meant…” She pointed to his left arm. “You’ve got a _sleeve_.”

Rhys couldn’t help a quick laugh of relief. Oh, right. That. 

“Uh, yeah. Surprise!”

“It’s huge,” said Sasha.

“Yep.”

“It’s _blue_ ,” said Sasha.

“Three for three, Sherlock.” But he was grinning again. 

“How long have you had that?” she demanded, still transfixed, incredulous enough that he laughed.

“Well, I definitely didn’t get it done on Pandora.” The notion of letting anyone on Pandora anywhere near him with a tattoo gun was horrific, but he decided not to share that thought. He lifted that arm to flex, then regretted it when he remembered that he had no real muscle definition to speak of and Sasha could probably deadlift a horse. “You like it?”

“I can’t believe you have a sleeve,” said Sasha. She grabbed his arm, inspecting it closely, as if she was trying to make sure it wasn’t an illusion, or something he'd got from the bottom of a cereal box. “You’re not hardcore enough to have a sleeve.”

“And _yet_ …”

Sasha climbed off his lap to kneel beside him, and Rhys pouted a little at the loss even as he took pride in the way she was poring over his arm like it was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. He splayed his fingers, and Sasha obliged, looping one of her hands through his. 

“This must’ve cost a fortune,” she said. She looked up to meet his eyes again, one eyebrow raised. “You know, your arms combined are probably worth more money than I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Rhys pretended to consider it. “Technically you’ve _seen_ ten million dollars, so…”

With a mock scowl, she tweaked the inside of his elbow lightly. “Smartass.”

She sat back on her heels, her expression turning pensive as she traced her finger along the outline of the pattern stretching down his arm. He wondered if she noticed the goosebumps she was creating.

“I used to want a tattoo,” she said after a minute. “Knew what I’d get and everything.” She pointed to a spot just above her hip, bare now without the red shirt to cover it. “But the money was always better spent somewhere else. Eventually I stopped thinking about it.” 

Rhys frowned, looking from the patch of brown skin back up to her wistful, far away expression. 

“You could get it now,” he suggested. Unable to help himself, he added, “Unless you were going to get ‘August’ in a heart, or something, then I gotta say—”

“I was thinking a portrait, actually. His face. Just right here.” She patted her side. “That'd be hot, right?”

“Oh, but you'd never find anyone to do those blue eyes justice, and then really, what’s the point?”

“Shut up,” she chided, but she was grinning as she shoved his own arm back at him. “I don’t know. Maybe I will.” She ran her fingers along the spot on her stomach for a second, then shrugged. “No tattoos yet. Plenty of scars, though.” 

On instinct he reached for the spot in the middle of her abdomen where she’d once held Felix’s pocket watch. The mark left behind was barely visible, a tiny disruption in her otherwise smooth skin, but he ran his finger over it reverently anyway. It was difficult not to imagine all the other ways that might have played out, and he shivered. 

Sasha’s hand ghosted over his for a second, then she lifted up the side of the black shirt still clinging valiantly to her left shoulder. “This one’s more impressive.” 

Running across her bottom ribs was a long white scar, new to him. He slid his hand from her stomach to her ribcage and brushed it with his thumb.

“Gross, right?” she prompted.

Her tone was light, and he found it difficult to tell if there was real insecurity underneath. He decided to play it safe.

“Nah.” His thumb traced back and forth down the line and he grinned. “It's cool. Scars are totally sexy.”

Her lips twitched, but Sasha rolled her eyes, dropping her shirt back down. “Oh yeah. Nothing sexier than getting stabbed by a bandit when you’re twelve.”

Rhys felt some of the colour—of which there was, admittedly, probably too much right now—drain from his face. “Okay, well, that’s… you know what, can we maybe just, like, park the conversation about your tragic childhood while I’m half-naked, or…?”

Sasha looked at him sharply, and he panicked that he’d miscalculated. God, why did he have to be such an idiot, all the time? What was it about Sasha’s proximity that made such stupid things come out of his mouth?

He was preparing to beg forgiveness, to grovel in apology, when Sasha's expression turned to a playful glare.

“You’re such an asshole.” She shoved him back down onto the mattress and hitched her leg over him again. Balancing on her elbows, she hovered above him, her smirk a few inches above his face. “Remind me why I like you again?”

“Well…” He craned his neck to kiss her. “Probably because I’m so hardcore.”

Sasha smirked against his mouth and sank down onto his lap again, earning a moan for her troubles. He reached up with both hands, pushing her shirt higher, past the scar on her ribcage, and Sasha sat back, letting him slide her shirt as far as he could before she pulled it over her head and dropped it to the floor. As she reached to remove her bra, Rhys sat up to help, but she pushed him back with one hand, unclasping the bra with the other and letting it fall to the pile as well. 

She hadn’t been lying about the scars. He could see them better now, marks of various shapes and sizes scattered here and there on her dark skin. He’d been half joking earlier, but the truth was he did like them; they were testimonies to the fact that Sasha was strong, a fighter, a survivor.

Remarkably, she was every bit as beautiful as his very generous imagination had led him to believe. Maybe even more. He shot her an encouraging smile, and for a split second when she smiled back, she looked uncharacteristically shy. 

As quick as it’d come, it was gone.

“‘Because I’m so hardcore’,” she repeated, her voice pitched lower in a poor parody of his, her eyes twinkling wickedly as she grinned. “That…” she said slowly, raking her nails down his chest to reach his belt buckle, “is _definitely_ not why.”

**Author's Note:**

> say hi on tumblr: @oodlyenough
> 
> here's the concept art of Sasha with a tattoo, which I used as the basis for her tattoo aspirations:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> and of course there's the [concept art with rhys' sleeve](http://68.media.tumblr.com/481bf7211faa07c6296d44eac3f612cd/tumblr_oswh3eaoCO1re93amo5_1280.jpg)


End file.
